


Entry Fee

by CaveSalamander



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 01:43:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15377919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaveSalamander/pseuds/CaveSalamander
Summary: Joshua doesn’t need another entry fee from Neku, after everything he's already taken... But like any game, their duel has rules, and there’s a fairness to it that must be observed, even if the outcome was already guaranteed. Josh would offer up his own entry fee.A take on the final game between Josh and Neku.





	Entry Fee

Joshua doesn’t need another entry fee from Neku. Shiki, Beat, and Rhyme were more than enough incentive for anyone, and they’re still locked up in limbo from Neku’s defeat of his conductor. Taking anything more would be adding insult to the sting of betrayal Neku is already feeling.

Neku had to hate him enough by now to pull the trigger, with the fate of a whole city on the line.

But like any game, it has rules, and there’s a fairness to it that must be observed, even if the outcome was already guaranteed. Josh would offer up his own entry fee.

Usually it was something that would be the most important thing, but in Josh’s case, well... Shibuya flat out refuses before Josh can make the suggestion. Her fate is already on the line, and she doesn’t need to be tied into the game any more than that. He briefly considers offering Hanekoma, but after what he pulled with Sho… well, he’d dropped real low on Josh's list of Things He Cared about. Then there’s Neku, but that option is easily dismissed. You can’t exactly use the other player as the fee in a game you’re playing.

What was left, but what Neku had given him during that week they played together? Not the bunny parka, head to toe Dragon Couture threads, or the Miso soup, but the little things. The talks they’d had. When Neku surprised him by agreeing, or even more by disagreeing. Sprinting around the streets of Shibuya together as partners. The arguments and clashes that reminded him what it was to be alive.

What was left, but Joshua's humanity?

It'd be one more reason for Neku to pull the trigger, and less guilt for Neku later.

So he strips away his emotions, all feelings good and bad. With the melody gone, all that remains is a low baseline and drums, beating slow and steady without his heart racing in anticipation of what is to come. It has the added bonus of accepting his own fate even easier, after all. No sentimental garbage to make him second guess if this was what he really wants.

He takes his place across from Neku, and starts the countdown.

Ten

Nine

And Neku has the gall to start crying? Is this really the same boy who had almost strangled his partner in the first few days?

Eight

Seven

Joshua peers down the barrel of his own gun, contemplating just what he could say to piss Neku off.

Six

Five

Oh, look at that, he doesn't even have to. Neku's eyes open, his expression clear and determined as he aims the gun at Josh.

Four

Josh wonders if it'll hurt. It hadn't really hurt the first time, since everything had been over so fast. Life's little crossroads, after all.

Three

Neku's arms shake, as if the weight of the gun is too much to keep holding up.

Two

Neku... somehow can’t do it. His hands drop, the gun barrel points to the ground, Neku's shoulders slump. Joshua doesn't understand. What motive could Neku have not to shoot? Joshua had betrayed him, killed him, threatened to destroy Shibuya, and worse.

One

And yet... Neku couldn't pull the trigger.

Zero

Oh well.

That just means Josh wins.

It takes a few seconds after the gunshot stops echoing around the cavernous room..

A few seconds for Neku to register that he'd been shot. A few seconds for him to slump slowly to the ground, looking up at Joshua, his expression a haze of confusion and pain.

A few seconds before Joshua gets his entry fee back.


End file.
